| James Bond Aston Martin DBS 'Casino Royale' This model is the 4th in what I hope will be a collection of James Bond vehicles. It depicts the Aston Martin DBS that appeared in the 2006 film 'Casino Royale', starring Danial Craig. The car had the distinction of setting a record of 7 barrel rolls when it was crashed as James Bond swerved to miss hitting his female cohort, Vesper Lynd (played by Eva Green) who the bad guys had bound and placed in the middle of the road. To make this version of the car represent the movie car, there were three differences from the model kit: - the paint was a custom blend of Tamiya gun metal and mica silver, decanted from spray cans - the headlight housing was painted Alclad aluminum, as opposed to the semi-gloss black called for in the instructions - the defibrillator located in the glove box was scratchbuilt. It was used by James Bond to recover from being poisoned by the bad guy's girl friend. This kit is one of the finest Tamiya model cars that I've ever seen from them. The photoetch grills and chrome badges/mirrors really make the model stand out. The fit and engineering is superb. There was only one issue that I ran into that was mostly my fault. There are two molding seams from the C pillar that go down either side of the rear deck. I sanded these smooth using foam backed sanding pads. However, after painting, the seam showed up as a gentle bump on the bodywork. The seam should be sanded down using a hard sanding block to level the surface. I'm still puzzled by something in modelling industry of which this kit is a good example. Model car and motorcycle manufacturers never seem to write instructions in the sequence you need to assemble the models correctly. For example, with this kit, there are two parts - the rear portion of the bodywork that makes up the spoiler and the front valance that need to be dealt with. In the instructions, these parts are attached in steps 18 and 16, respectively, after other body parts have been attached. However, in order to do the model properly, these parts need to be attached much earlier, any gaps filled in (if necessary) and then the whole body prepped and painted. With Tamiya kits, you can do the bodywork early in the build sequence because you will rarely find fit problems at the end. With older domestic kits, I always do a complete dry fit of the body, interior and chassis as I have experienced fit problems when everything comes together for final assembly. Similar to the assembly sequence issues, I have yet to see instructions where the proper painting sequence is outlined. That is, subassemblies are put together, then all the parts of the same colour are identified in a series of painting steps. This would make building much more logical and avoid the problem we have all encountered of getting to step 20 and realize we have to get out the airbrush to paint a part a colour we have already used in a previous step. I'm not sure whether this practice stems from instructions originally being done for aircraft, armour and ships, where you can often do 90%+ of the assembly without every having to paint a single part. Then at, or near, the end you can airbrush or spray the entire model in one step. I've seen build sequences online or in magazines in which the authors follow a more logical building sequence, but never have I seen kit instructions that do so. I'm almost tempted to start an online movement to rewrite model car instructions in a more logical sequence. Base Kit(s): Tamiya Aston Martin DBS (kit number 24316) Finished: June 2013 Modifications/Additions: - built pretty much out of the box - custom printed license plate - chrome badges from an eBay seller - flocked floor (although almost impossible to see through the windows) - scratchbuilt defibrillator in glove box - body paint is mixture of Tamiya Gun Metal and Mica Silver, airbrushed, clearcoated, polished and waxed, interior is Tamiya acrylics Click on Thumbnail to see detailed image. These images are 1024 x 768 and maybe a bit slow to load, depending on your connection speed. |
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Evan Jones Car Models
